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TouchyMcFeely
Aug 21, 2006

High five! Hell yeah!

I know in my case the cost of my time to take an extra flight or route less efficiently is significantly less than the cost to lose status.

For example, if I fail to maintain silver medallion on Delta I will start getting hit with the $25.00 bag fee increasing the cost of travel by $50 per trip. The total cost of baggage fees would end up costing more than a quick turn around flight between SLC and DEN to keep my status.

There are additional benefits that save money/time as well such as access to the faster security lane (can arrive at the airport later reducing the amount of overall travel time), access to the lounge (quieter, more conductive to working, calling clients, etc.) changing flights without penalty or charge, etc.

For employers of frequent travelers, having their employees maintain status can significantly reduce the cost of travel and the more an employee travels the more important it is that they maintain that higher level of status.

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Bolivar
Aug 20, 2011

Trench_Rat posted:

anyone ever flown with Aeroflot?

I did Helsinki-Tokyo-Helsinki once (with transits in some Moscow airport), for holiday and with Aeroflot only because some German company was accidentally (?)selling it for 290 euros = 380 dollars (which is pretty cheap). On my way to Tokyo, I had a 50 minute transit scheduled, which was cut down to 20 minutes or so, due to the plane leaving late, so that involved a lot of running and queue jumping. On my return flights, for some retarded-as-gently caress reason I couldn't check-in all the way to Helsinki as with any other airline in the world, so I had to queue to the transit counter in Moscow. As did 95% of other passangers, whether they needed to or not (most of them didn't). It was bit of a chaos with the staff shouting that if people have a boarding pass, they can proceed to passport counter instead of queueing at the transit counter. I wonder if they have the same chaos every day. The staff attitude in the airport was 2nd shittiest in the world after Paris CDG.

The trip itself was worth it because Tokyo is awesome and the flights were cheap but holy poo poo no more Moscow transits for me. Also, after all this wall of text, you probably just wanted to know if the planes and flight service were fine. Yes they were, and I recall the economy seats being quite comfortable.

Uncle Jam
Aug 20, 2005

Perfect
I would never intentionally extend my trip for status because the chance of a missed meeting costs more than any benefits status provides. If your company is giving you poo poo for bag fees but asking you to travel, they are being idiots. If you extend your flight, doesnt that defeat the purpose of queue jumping to save time? Plus the queues for checkin and security are not so bad, only one time having priority really saved me.

It comes down to the fact Id rather be doing things i want to do than flying in a plane trying to collect miles.

Beef Of Ages
Jan 11, 2003

Your dumb is leaking.

Uncle Jam posted:

I would never intentionally extend my trip for status because the chance of a missed meeting costs more than any benefits status provides. If your company is giving you poo poo for bag fees but asking you to travel, they are being idiots. If you extend your flight, doesnt that defeat the purpose of queue jumping to save time? Plus the queues for checkin and security are not so bad, only one time having priority really saved me.

It comes down to the fact Id rather be doing things i want to do than flying in a plane trying to collect miles.

To be fair, check in and security queues are often terrible at some airports, so that comment is not universal. There are many times where an elite line (or now Precheck) has made the process not only simpler, but much less time intensive. But it depends where you're flying out of, what time of day, what day, season, etc. Lots of factors affect that.

But yeah, like I said, it's up to the individual to make a judgement as to the value proposition offered by elite status at a given level.

TouchyMcFeely
Aug 21, 2006

High five! Hell yeah!

It also depends on how frequently you're having to do a mileage/segment run.

I'll likely have to do a SLC to DEN run to maintain status. It will cost around $300 and take about 5 hours including travel to and from the airport. Really not that big of deal.

On the other hand if I were having to do that same run 2 or 3 times it wouldn't be worth the time and effort.

Additionally depending on where you're headed, traveling for 9 hours directly or 12 hours with a layover is not that much different. In fact taking the layover might be better as you get a chance to get off the plane and stretch your legs a bit somewhere in the middle.

Obviously there are folks who play the status game really hard and do everything they can to maximize their earnings but I can't say I've noticed anyone on here doing that.

Thoguh
Nov 8, 2002

College Slice

sellouts posted:

But yeah, if you can get away with it, more power to you I guess. I know plenty of travel nerds but i just don't know many people who travel regularly for work either not have enough segments or have that freedom. Maybe I'm just too honest with my work time and my hobby time.

I don't feel bad gaming the rules in order to get my travel as close to ideal as possible. When I'm traveling for work I'm giving up a lot of my own personal life and I'm also more or less expected to be on call 24 hours and subject to the whims of the customer I'm working with for when my work day starts/ends. Asking in return that they let me stay at my preferred hotel, fly my preferred airline, and use my preferred rental car company isn't much of a request. For an extra $50-$100 on the expense report I have a much better experience and they get a much happier and more productive employee. Plus one who is willing to travel much more often than I would if they were assholes about expenses.

Cocoa Crispies
Jul 20, 2001

Vehicular Manslaughter!

Pillbug

Thoguh posted:

For an extra $50-$100 on the expense report I have a much better experience and they get a much happier and more productive employee. Plus one who is willing to travel much more often than I would if they were assholes about expenses.

I'm lucky that my employer feels the same way: happier employees mean happier customers, and happy customers re-up on their contracts.

WAFFLEHOUND posted:

Seattle pretty much is awesome and Seatac is a good airport. :)
Yeah, although they didn't have the TSA Pre-check line open on Sunday night.

WAFFLEHOUND
Apr 26, 2007

Cocoa Crispies posted:

Yeah, although they didn't have the TSA Pre-check line open on Sunday night.

Yeah, but when it's open it's nice. It used to be one of the worst airports in the U.S., so it could be worse.

Thoguh
Nov 8, 2002

College Slice
The airports I go through generally don't have precheck. So I consider a freedom grope to just be a part of my travel experience. I'm on a first name basis with the TSA guys at my home airport.

Uncle Jam
Aug 20, 2005

Perfect

TouchyMcFeely posted:

Additionally depending on where you're headed, traveling for 9 hours directly or 12 hours with a layover is not that much different. In fact taking the layover might be better as you get a chance to get off the plane and stretch your legs a bit somewhere in the middle.

This is just personal opinion but I have a semi common route that is 13 hours. I did a layover once because it was $1000 cheaper, it was 17 hours. It barely added any miles to my route and I definitely could feel the different.

That time I almost got hosed over too because on my first leg the plane was throttling up to get on the runway and an engine died. Thankfully they just restarted the systems and we were gone in 15 minutes. But if I had missed my connection I would have been screwed.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR
Apr 12, 2010



Runner-up, TRP Sack Race 2021/22

TouchyMcFeely posted:

It also depends on how frequently you're having to do a mileage/segment run.

I'll likely have to do a SLC to DEN run to maintain status. It will cost around $300 and take about 5 hours including travel to and from the airport. Really not that big of deal.

On the other hand if I were having to do that same run 2 or 3 times it wouldn't be worth the time and effort.

Additionally depending on where you're headed, traveling for 9 hours directly or 12 hours with a layover is not that much different. In fact taking the layover might be better as you get a chance to get off the plane and stretch your legs a bit somewhere in the middle.

Obviously there are folks who play the status game really hard and do everything they can to maximize their earnings but I can't say I've noticed anyone on here doing that.

I'd rather just buy up in that case. Delta lets you buy MQMs at the end of the year. Or there's a promo on SkyClub for 1500 MQMs. I'd rather do either of those than a mileage run in a CRJ7.

My employer's really flexible, and the things you mention do make a difference, but I hit plat on Delta this year despite running a lot of other segments (probably 25 not on SkyTeam). If you're making an effort to maintain Silver, in my opinion, you're not traveling enough for it to matter.

While we're on the subject of Delta, gently caress THE NEW DELTA.COM.

Thoguh
Nov 8, 2002

College Slice

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

While we're on the subject of Delta, gently caress THE NEW DELTA.COM.

I don't understand why they thought it was important to make me a pie chart detailing where my miles have come from this year. Does anybody actually give a poo poo about whether their miles came from a hotel bonus, a promotion, or from a flight? Because I don't single there is a single person that isn't a Delta employee that gives a single gently caress about that.

Which pretty much sums up the redesign. They made it look like what somebody who works for Delta would want rather than what somebody who flies on Delta would want.

I just wish they'd fix their app so I didn't have to force quit it every time it gets stuck on "downloading itinerary".

Thoguh fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Dec 6, 2012

Morby
Sep 6, 2007
Yeah, they should have put more time into making sure their app isn't a broken piece of poo poo.

kansas
Dec 3, 2012

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

The other thing is, I find it pretty dumb to do two segments versus one to just increase time, inconvenience and whatnot for status.

Obviously you have to do the math, but depending on the situation it can be worth it.

There was a promo a few years back for an extra 2,500 miles for flights from LGA-BOS. There is a 500 mile minimum per segment, 100% bonus for having status, and at the time, a second 100% bonus for living in NYC my 'address' on file was the Sheraton. Plus then I had a slightly longer following flight BOS-DFW. These all added up to an extra 14,000 miles a week when adding in the extra stop.

Best part was these flights had barely legal connections so even a 10 minute delay would make it an illegal connection. Then you are able to do confirmed standby on a direct and then just call later and ask for 'original routing credit'. I ended up actually going through Boston only 3 times in ~30 flights. This party lasted for about 3 months over the summer and I racked up an additional 200,000 miles (which counted for lifetime status at that point!).

sellouts
Apr 23, 2003

I'll never understand the logic of more segments, travel time and distance = happier employee. I usually think what makes a happier employee is bottom line compensation for dealing with the lovely parts of their job but hey, different strokes. I guess some people value their T&E budget more than I do. I'd rather be at home in my bed being paid more. That's just me though.

TouchyMcFeely posted:

I know in my case the cost of my time to take an extra flight or route less efficiently is significantly less than the cost to lose status.

For employers of frequent travelers, having their employees maintain status can significantly reduce the cost of travel and the more an employee travels the more important it is that they maintain that higher level of status.

I consider 25k miles or 25 segments the floor of "frequent business travel". Maybe I'm taking the length of my flights for granted and there are road warriors out there who still struggle to make minimums but that threshold is pretty small by most standards.

I also dunno any 25k flyer that gets access regularly to a lounge by flying that distance yearly but I don't know every program.

And the more often a person flies, the more important they have status but the more they fly the easier it is for them to get almost all of the perks you are talking about without having to resort to additional routing that negate any time savings at best and at worse put them at a much higher risk for delayed or cancelled travel.

Uncle Jam posted:

This is just personal opinion but I have a semi common route that is 13 hours. I did a layover once because it was $1000 cheaper, it was 17 hours. It barely added any miles to my route and I definitely could feel the different.

That time I almost got hosed over too because on my first leg the plane was throttling up to get on the runway and an engine died. Thankfully they just restarted the systems and we were gone in 15 minutes. But if I had missed my connection I would have been screwed.

Irregular ops can ruin your day. Sometimes it's weather, maintenance, schedule changes... A million things. Fly often enough and you'll see it. I just can't see increasing that risk by adding segments regularly but maybe my travel times are too specific and windows are too narrow to deal with shuffling things around due to travel problems of largely my own creation.

TouchyMcFeely
Aug 21, 2006

High five! Hell yeah!

My flights are typically between SLC and Billings MT or Las Vegas NV and I make one of the trips typically once, maybe twice a month.

Those are both 500 mile trips and don't get me to Silver. Sometimes I'll have training in CT, CA or even Europe that will help bump me up but I don't do the weekly, long flights that most hardcore travelers do. I do fairly frequent, short hops that in some years leaves me just short of where I need to be to maintain status.

For example, Delta has a 30 segment threshold for silver medallion. This year, unless I do a run, I'll have 28 (it was a light year).

Next year, if I do the same number of segments I'll end up with $700 in luggage fees. That alone justifies the half day spent running between SLC and somewhere cheap.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

I'd rather just buy up in that case. Delta lets you buy MQMs at the end of the year. Or there's a promo on SkyClub for 1500 MQMs. I'd rather do either of those than a mileage run in a CRJ7.

I've never seen where I can purchase segments but I've never looked very hard. Because of my short flights, miles never get me status. For me it's all segments. Almost always on RJ and CRJ 700s. Just getting into a real plane in coach makes me an extremely happy traveler.

Uncle Jam
Aug 20, 2005

Perfect
Your company doesn't pay the bag fees? This is where I'm getting kind of confused by your situation. If they do, then why not let them? I'm sure they would prefer you to be working for a day than mucking about in an airplane.

i like Ham
Dec 25, 2006

I'm a big fancy business man. Mind if I check you'r prostate?

Uncle Jam posted:

Your company doesn't pay the bag fees? This is where I'm getting kind of confused by your situation. If they do, then why not let them? I'm sure they would prefer you to be working for a day than mucking about in an airplane.

I'm sure his employer pays for baggage, but that's only part of the point. `The extra baggage fees are simply a reasonable justification for why one might do a MR, yeah my employer would pay those fees but it would be better if they didn't have to. Obviously the perks of having status are valuable enough to some that, combined with money you can save your employer, it's completely worth an extra segment from time to time.

I've never done a mileage run myself in the most traditional sense, but there have been a few occasions where, when it made sense, I chose a flight that cost the same but had an additional segment. If you are booking on reasonably short notice it's pretty easy to check the weather in the connecting city and see how terrible of an idea this is. Sure you can still have mechanical problems, but if the weather is nice you are really drastically reducing your risk for delays. If I'm coming home from Atlanta on a Friday afternoon and there is a connecting flight in Memphis where it is 75 degrees and sunny, I will sometimes take it.

It really just depends on the person to see if grabbing an extra leg is worth it to them. Silver Medallion is a really solid bottom tier, I used to have a pretty decent upgrade rate as a Silver whereas getting one without status you are resigned to incredibly low chances and only on full fare tickets. If you are looking to hit gold on Delta or Platinum on American and you are only a few segments or a few thousand miles away, you would almost be silly to not do a few extra legs in order to get a 100% mileage bonus the following year.

I'm in the same boat as TouchyMcFeely, although I travel way more I almost always hit on segments before I would qualify on miles; and I think that tossing in a couple of extra legs is more important for those like us. It's always annoyed me how much these programs lean toward overseas travel, where status is weighted more heavily to miles than segments. Seems odd that they line up so much at lower tiers where it's 1000x miles/1x segment to hit status, but once you get up to things like DM you have 125k/140. Not sure why they do it this way as from a revenue standpoint I likely generate way more than a lot of the guys who do 5-8 trips to Asia or Africa yearly and qualify for Diamond.

Also gently caress the new Delta website, I have no earthly idea what they were thinking.

TouchyMcFeely
Aug 21, 2006

High five! Hell yeah!

In a total subject change, does anyone know if the Pre-Check needs to be renewed yearly?

I got it this year thanks to having Gold status when it was first introduced last year but I don't believe Silver gets it automatically. That Pre-Check lane is a god send and if I need to get a NEXUS pass to continue to have access I'd like to get the ball rolling on it now.

edit: and yes, my employer pays all travel fees including checked luggage fees.

Cocoa Crispies
Jul 20, 2001

Vehicular Manslaughter!

Pillbug

sellouts posted:

I'll never understand the logic of more segments, travel time and distance = happier employee. I usually think what makes a happier employee is bottom line compensation for dealing with the lovely parts of their job but hey, different strokes. I guess some people value their T&E budget more than I do. I'd rather be at home in my bed being paid more. That's just me though.

If I'm going to be traveling anyways, I want to be in a tier that is materially better than the default scrub tier. At the end of the day, money is just a number on my bank's website, and sitting up front or renting a G37 instead of an Aveo is something that makes travel better. I want to like my work, and generally do (programming computers loving rocks, especially when my customer wants me around to show it off), but there's always ways to make it better.

i like Ham posted:

It really just depends on the person to see if grabbing an extra leg is worth it to them. Silver Medallion is a really solid bottom tier, I used to have a pretty decent upgrade rate as a Silver whereas getting one without status you are resigned to incredibly low chances and only on full fare tickets.

That's what my trip to Seattle was for. I've done >50k miles this year, but split between AA, DL, with one flight on UA (thankfully zeroing out my miles with them, gently caress that gay airline). AA's labor problems wasted hours of my life on my last trip with them, starting 2013 with status on both AA and DL improves the experience with either one, and for the cost of spending a fun weekend in Seattle I got to have both.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Beef Of Ages
Jan 11, 2003

Your dumb is leaking.

i like Ham posted:

Also gently caress the new Delta website, I have no earthly idea what they were thinking.

United has a new site design coming in 2013 too. I hope they do things well. :ohdear:

sellouts
Apr 23, 2003

One mileage run to put you over I understand a lot more than habitually adding segments or flying into further away airports to make up a 20 segment shortfall between one level and the next.

I guess my question is how do these lines of reasoning stand up the first few times you misconnect and miss a client meeting or have to get additional hotel rooms when it's on the books that there were more direct options that you chose to avoid? Maybe it's rare but the one person my company wants more happy than I is the person I am flying to see.

what is this
Sep 11, 2001

it is a lemur
If you have a plat amex you can do GOES which gives you PreCheck as well.


(You can online enroll for global entry regardless, but amex reimburses with plat)

what is this
Sep 11, 2001

it is a lemur

sellouts posted:

One mileage run to put you over I understand a lot more than habitually adding segments or flying into further away airports to make up a 20 segment shortfall between one level and the next.

I guess my question is how do these lines of reasoning stand up the first few times you misconnect and miss a client meeting or have to get additional hotel rooms when it's on the books that there were more direct options that you chose to avoid? Maybe it's rare but the one person my company wants more happy than I is the person I am flying to see.

It's inevitable with business travel that some things go wrong.

My company always flies me in, if at all possible, the night before. However, I have had weird flight situations, not of my own causing (ATL-MIA-PDX at night, missed last PDX, shoved back on the same plane to ATL) and sometimes you just have to cancel or reschedule. People understand when things go wrong.

I don't pad my miles with strange routings, mostly because I live in Atlanta and for Delta from ATL the cheapest fares are usually direct.

However, I had a last minute trip to SLC next week and am going ATL-LAX-SLC and returning likewise through LAX. This was $800 cheaper (!) than ATL-SLC.

However, to book this I had to use multi-city routing, as Delta would not offer that flight at that price through their crappy website since it does not match their layover criteria (long layover in LAX on the first leg). ITA Matrix however once again saved the day.

what is this fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Dec 6, 2012

Belldandy
Sep 11, 2001

Do not try to boost in peace, because that is impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth, there is no boost.

TouchyMcFeely posted:

In a total subject change, does anyone know if the Pre-Check needs to be renewed yearly?

I got it this year thanks to having Gold status when it was first introduced last year but I don't believe Silver gets it automatically. That Pre-Check lane is a god send and if I need to get a NEXUS pass to continue to have access I'd like to get the ball rolling on it now.

edit: and yes, my employer pays all travel fees including checked luggage fees.

No, but it is on an airline by airline basis. So if you had it for Delta and wanted to get it on United you'd have to go through the steps again.

The NEXUS pass is great but under no circumstances indicate that any of your Canada travel is business related. I almost got arrested due to that argument.

TouchyMcFeely
Aug 21, 2006

High five! Hell yeah!

I'd be getting just for Pre-Check access. I very rarely (like twice in the last 10 years) travel international for business.

TouchyMcFeely fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Dec 6, 2012

Lyon
Apr 17, 2003
I thought I was going to have to do a small MR to hit gold on US Airways but a project manager just asked me if I would fly to San Francisco for a week long engagement before Christmas so now I'll hit gold on the company dollar.

If anyone wants to try out US Airways Silver Preferred I have at least one free 90 day trial. You'll be Silver Preferred on US Air for 90 days and then depending on how many miles you fly on US/Star Alliance (using your US FF#) you can earn Silver through Chairman's Preferred and keep it for the next program year.

I just need a US Air FF# and I can gift it on over.

H.R. Paperstacks
May 1, 2006

This is America
My president is black
and my Lambo is blue
There was a special on CNBC: Inside American Airlines(Netflix) and they did a short segment on their reward program and the guying VP'ing it made mention that the majority of their top status people do not get their via flying, but on purchases through their credit card programs.

I usually travel once a month, sometimes more but I could go a month or two without any travel and I just hit Silver on Delta, mainly because 90% of my flights are PNS-ATL-STL, with the occasional PNS-ATL-BWD and this year I did a trip to Hawaii. I might have one maybe two big trips like that a year, so I'm one that wouldn't hit status based on mileage so I opted go with a Delta AMEX (thankfully work allows me to pick a preferred carrier) and use that instead of my debit card now when traveling and paying for food etc. Work still makes us use the corporate issued MasterCard for flights/hotel/rent though, which sucks because I would love to double dip.

Do the miles you get on purchases not equal up the same way? I know their not MQM, but I assumed if Silver was 25 or 35k miles, you could effectively hit it by charging up 25 or 35k on the card.

Soy Division
Aug 12, 2004

routenull0 posted:

Do the miles you get on purchases not equal up the same way? I know their not MQM, but I assumed if Silver was 25 or 35k miles, you could effectively hit it by charging up 25 or 35k on the card.
No idea how it works on DL, but on UA your CC miles do not count towards elite qualifying except under very, very limited circumstances.

Thoguh
Nov 8, 2002

College Slice

Gail Wynand posted:

No idea how it works on DL, but on UA your CC miles do not count towards elite qualifying except under very, very limited circumstances.

Same on Delta. But just having the card gives you most of the benefits of Silver anyway.

Uncle Jam
Aug 20, 2005

Perfect
You can get a milage boost on delta cards that counts for status but thats it. Basically if you spend over 30 k then 15 k gets credited in one big chunk. My manager got into the 700 k range this year and my colleague blew over a million miles on reward travel this summer giving his family a world tour and neither of them have the delta cards.

Cocoa Crispies
Jul 20, 2001

Vehicular Manslaughter!

Pillbug

Belldandy posted:

No, but it is on an airline by airline basis. So if you had it for Delta and wanted to get it on United you'd have to go through the steps again.

Emphatically wrong. I qualified for Pre-check based on AA status and living in an AA hub city (MIA is an AA hub), and the first chance I got to use it was with DL at ATL. All you have to do is copy over your "Known Traveler Number."

sellouts
Apr 23, 2003

routenull0 posted:

There was a special on CNBC: Inside American Airlines(Netflix) and they did a short segment on their reward program and the guying VP'ing it made mention that the majority of their top status people do not get their via flying, but on purchases through their credit card programs.

You do not earn EQM or EQP via credit cards on AA anymore. That program you watched is pretty outdated. Miles required to get status are BIS miles. Butt in seat. Sometimes there are double EQM or EQP programs but yes.

Someone who does business in Europe needs to write this off: http://cojetage.fr/. 200 euros for a 1hr private jet from Paris to a handful of places? Awesome.

Obviously pretty impractical for business given that there are limited destinations each day but still awesome.

Mitsuo
Jul 4, 2007
What does this box do?
Welp, bookmarking this thread ASAP. I'm starting a data center engineering job in January which will involve up to 75% travel, based out of Austin. Not sure which airlines I'll be using most just yet, but I have a feeling that as I get into it I'll be referring back to this thread pretty often.

Good to hear Austin is one of the better ones. It seemed nice as I was passing through.

Belldandy
Sep 11, 2001

Do not try to boost in peace, because that is impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth, there is no boost.

Cocoa Crispies posted:

Emphatically wrong. I qualified for Pre-check based on AA status and living in an AA hub city (MIA is an AA hub), and the first chance I got to use it was with DL at ATL. All you have to do is copy over your "Known Traveler Number."

You are "emphatically" incorrect here, have your programs confused, and are missing a key point. Let me clarify:

"Vanilla" TSA PreCheck is granted by the airlines themselves to frequent fliers and is ultimately where TSA pulls their information from. By that virtue, a passenger qualifying under one airline can’t use PreCheck if flying another carrier as they would not share this information.

However, if one has Global Entry, which is what you most likely have, this supersedes PreCheck and by virtue of having Global Entry (And other programs like NEXUS/SENTRI) you have PreCheck, which is where you ultimately have your "Known Traveler Number" crafted from. Because Global Entry is TSA initiated and because TSA requires you to fill out an application, which they can deny, they can share this information and grant PreCheck status regardless of airline.

Belldandy fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Dec 7, 2012

Belldandy
Sep 11, 2001

Do not try to boost in peace, because that is impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth, there is no boost.

Mitsuo posted:

Welp, bookmarking this thread ASAP. I'm starting a data center engineering job in January which will involve up to 75% travel, based out of Austin. Not sure which airlines I'll be using most just yet, but I have a feeling that as I get into it I'll be referring back to this thread pretty often.

Good to hear Austin is one of the better ones. It seemed nice as I was passing through.

AUS is kind of one of those awkward airports like BOS that serves a decent sized city but doesn't really go anywhere. You will be served the most routes by Southwest but also will have deal with all of the downsides of flying Southwest. My suggestion would be to use AA or UL, you'll basically be shuttling to either DFW or IAH but you will have a TON of options from that point. Both DFW and IAH have fairly frequent flights to AUS and both are about equidistant to drive to in a bind.

Beef Of Ages
Jan 11, 2003

Your dumb is leaking.

Mitsuo posted:

Welp, bookmarking this thread ASAP. I'm starting a data center engineering job in January which will involve up to 75% travel, based out of Austin. Not sure which airlines I'll be using most just yet, but I have a feeling that as I get into it I'll be referring back to this thread pretty often.

Good to hear Austin is one of the better ones. It seemed nice as I was passing through.

I live in Austin as well and it is a great airport for a city this size. Where you're going and what flexibility you have in picking airlines will determine what works best for you. Southwest is the largest carrier at AUS, but AA offers good connections to DFW and ORD for domestic stuff. United has great frequencies to Houston and can get you to the west coast (SFO or LAX) fairly easily as well. East coast stuff is a toss up between United and Delta, with Delta offering a few larger aircraft to ATL. But then you have to connect in ATL, and that's not my favorite personally. Lots of regional aircraft to MSP (and fewer to MEM as they start to de-hub).

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

sellouts posted:

You do not earn EQM or EQP via credit cards on AA anymore. That program you watched is pretty outdated. Miles required to get status are BIS miles. Butt in seat. Sometimes there are double EQM or EQP programs but yes.
Could one ever get EQM/P from credit cards on AA and could qualify for status for a given year off card spend?

Up until last December any mile (BIS, credit card, rental car/hotel bonus) counted for the 1MM/2MM lifetime Platinum/Gold programs, but I didn't think you could ever get annual status qualifying miles from cards. There were lots of people on FlyerTalk applying for dozens of AA Citi cards and using them just enough to get the 25/50/75K mile bonus off each card to get them closer to the 1MM or 2MM mark though.

Then again, I could be wrong; the AA program used to do plenty of things that are long gone now, like blocking out the middle seat if an elite passenger was sitting in the row.

kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Dec 7, 2012

Thoguh
Nov 8, 2002

College Slice
Barring something unplanned between Christmas and New Years it looks like I'm going to be finishing the year with 93,933 MQM miles over 94 segments on Delta, 87 nights in Hilton Honors hotels over 27 stays, and 24 Hertz rentals. Plus a few odds and ends that weren't on my preferred loyalty programs. I'm an engineer who does integration on DoD projects, so the travel is spread out around the country but 90% of it is to one west coast and one east coast location.

I hit Platinum on Delta for the first time, which has made a world of difference on actually getting upgrades on flights. Diamond with Hilton Honors was also huge, the hotels I stay at suddenly all have suites for me rather than normal rooms. I'll lose President's Circle on Hertz next year for the first time since 2009 but that isn't a huge deal. Car upgrades are nice but nothing worth planning a trip around.

How about everybody else?

Thoguh fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Dec 7, 2012

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Belldandy
Sep 11, 2001

Do not try to boost in peace, because that is impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth, there is no boost.

kitten smoothie posted:

Could one ever get EQM/P from credit cards on AA and could qualify for status for a given year off card spend?

Up until last December any mile (BIS, credit card, rental car/hotel bonus) counted for the 1MM/2MM lifetime Platinum/Gold programs, but I didn't think you could ever get annual status qualifying miles from cards. There were lots of people on FlyerTalk applying for dozens of AA Citi cards and using them just enough to get the 25/50/75K mile bonus off each card to get them closer to the 1MM or 2MM mark though.

Then again, I could be wrong; the AA program used to do plenty of things that are long gone now, like blocking out the middle seat if an elite passenger was sitting in the row.

Yep, you are right, You used to be able to get Lifetime Gold/Plat from the miles generated by the Citi AA CC but not actual yearly status via the Million Miler program back before they changed it this year.

Man, the middle seat thing sounds great, too bad they got rid of that but also understandable.

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